Running with Jack

Last night was swim class #5, half way through. Teacher had us swim a half-lap to observe which individual problem areas we had. If she saw my swimming from Thursday night she probably would have sent me back to Kindergarten. But my loving wife spend a half hour before class working with me on my kick, so I was in pretty good shape as I took my turn. Teacher said I was much better than last week. So then she assigned each one of us individual tasks and had us do 20m laps practicing our problem areas.

My task was to work on my kick. I figured out right away that the way she teaches the kick and the way my wife does it are about two universes away from each other. As soon as I tried Teacher’s method my entire kicking form went to crap. It took the rest of the 45 minute class to even come close to the this form. Blah!

After class my wife, who was watching the whole class session, said it was like someone hit a switch and turned off my kicking machine. Teacher teaches a kick where you bend your knees, hook your angles then try to kick the water with the flat of your feet, eventually bringing the feet together as you finish the cycle. This hooking of the feet is NOT a natural movement for my feet! While demonstrating it to my wife on dry land she made the comment that my feet look like they are going to cramp up at any second when I do this.

So anyway I have to work on this next week. I guess I got in about 500 meters of laps plus may a couple hundred meters more during the class.

Running

This morning I was up at 6:00, had a small breakfast, then headed out for a long run. My goal was to complete at least 21K/12M at about a 6:00/K (9:39/M) pace. It was about 7C/45F as I headed out the door. I knew it would be chilly so I wore long running pants (tights) and a running jacket. The first kilometer was through the sleepy town and I completed it in exactly 6 minutes. Right past the imaginary 1K marker, I plunged onto an asphalt-covered trail that I did my long runs on last year. It was pitch black, I could only run between the tree lines on each side of the trail and hope there weren’t any tree limbs blocking the way.

So I wound my way done this trail for awhile, then took a couple right turns, heading back and past my town onto the trails that the Graben Running group uses. By this time it was finally getting light enough to see my watch, but I wasn’t sure of the kilometer intervals so this didn’t help much. The last 5K were over my normal 14K running trail so I could at least check my speed over this part of the run (5:45/K).

Anyway I finished the run in 2:31:27. As this is almost the same trail I took four weeks ago, I would guess I ran about 26K/16.1M. this would be an average pace of 5:49/K (9:22/M) which feels entirely reasonable.

My legs are sore, partly from the run, but probably mostly from the fact that I have been training 10 days straight without a break. Swimming is especially taxing my legs in the moment.

Have a nice weekend!